Remembering Great Aunt Ida

OTD in 1892, my great aunt Ida Mahler (1892-1971) was born at home in a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Chaya (as she was named on her birth cert, above), was born at 105 Allen Street, in a heavily immigrant neighborhood. By 1900, the family had moved six blocks away to 88 Chrystie Street, also part of the Lower East side where immigrants often lived.By 1905, however, Ida and her family had relocated way uptown to a newer apartment in Jewish Harlem. That was very fortunate because tenements were firetraps. Ida's birthplace became notorious, sorry to say. "Lives Gone in a Puff of Smoke"As described on the Tenement Museum website, a fire broke out in the basement of 105 Allen Street in the early hours of March 14, 1905. It spread and became a two-alarm blaze that unfortunately took the lives of more than a dozen people, mostly young. There were fire escapes but they were blocked, and the door to the roof was locked. Residents were trapped. This fire shocked New York City…